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SC/69A/HIM/11
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Resource ID
20014
Access
Open
Document Number
SC/69A/HIM/11
Full Title
Porpoise and People: Using Local Environmental Knowledge and Fishing Community Cooperation to Map Bycatch Hotspots for Finless Porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides), in Hong Kong SAR
Author
Porter, L, Brannan, N And Hodgins, N
Authors Summary
HIMXX presents the results of ongoing work with Hong Kong fishing communities aimed at identifying areas of bycatch risk for finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides). Three fishing communities participated in the project, using a combination of tracking devices on fishing vessels and autonomous acoustic devices (AAD) on active fishing gear. The vessels that took part in this study are coastal fishing vessels, locally known as “P4s”, that deploy mixed gear types, particularly gill nets. In Hong Kong, there is no standard for gillnet length, configuration or mesh size and each fishermen tends to design and deploy a bespoke net, depending on season, prevailing weather conditions and/or target species for that day/trip. In addition, one purse seine fishing vessel took part, which deployed a net of approximately 120 m in length, 50 m in height with mesh size of 2cm. A total of 817 discrete fishing trips over 355 fishing days were recorded between January 2022 and March 2023. The majority of fishing activity, as the number of fishing trips per km2, was concentrated along the western side of Cheung Chau (Island) with fishing hotspots identified in three areas; Admasta Channel, Shek Kwu Chau (island) and around the typhoon shelter breakwater of Hei Ling Chau. When fishing activity was compared with finless porpoise sightings recorded between 2017-2022, 75 km2 of overlap between fishing activity and finless porpoise sightings was mapped. The area of highest overlap occurred adjacent to the islands of Shek Kwu Chau and Cheung Chau. AAD deployments on gillnets revealed that finless porpoise occur in areas where they had not been sighted previously. This project is ongoing and is hoped to expand into other fishing communities in Hong Kong and a project using the same framework has been initiated in Sarawak, Malaysia.
Publisher
IWC
Publication Year
2023
Abstract
Assessing finless porpoise bycatch risk in Hong Kong fishing communities